Winter sports equipment recently saw explosive growth in sales in the Yiwu International Trade Market, the world's largest wholesale market for small commodities, which is located in downtown Yiwu, East China's Zhejiang province.

The sales were largely boosted by the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games, which ran from Feb 4 to Feb 20.

Many shops in the Yiwu market have started to add winter sports equipment for sales, such as ice hockey sticks, ice skates, sleighs, and skis, since Beijing won its Winter Olympics bid in 2015.

Data from Chinagoods, the e-commerce platform for the Yiwu market, shows that key words related to winter sports have recently been searched more than 100,000 times.

Chen Jing, a shopkeeper in Area 3 of the market, was an avid watcher of the short-track speed skating, speed skating, and figure skating contests at the Beijing Winter Olympics, as his shop sells the ice skates and helmets which the Olympics contestants wore to the general public. The sales of the two products have quadrupled in his online store.

"We sold 3,000 snow helmets to Russian clients right before the Spring Festival," said Chen.

He Bing, an owner of an outdoor goods shop in the market, said that purchase orders for ski poles, most of which had been from Europe, North America, Japan, and South Korea before the Beijing Winter Olympics, recently saw a surge among domestic clients.

A shopkeeper at the Yiwu International Trade Market showcases a snow helmet on sale in the winter sports shop. [Photo/zgyww.cn]